In a report release on May 5, 2016, a research team from Duke Health has developed an antibody from the body’s own immune system that preferentially attacks cancer cells. The antibody works by targeting a natural defense mechanism that cancer tumors exploit. Cells in the body essentially use a home security system that relies on certain proteins to protect the cell surface and keep it safe. These proteins help the cell avoid injury and even death from unwanted activation of the immune system.

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Researchers extracted the white blood cells from patients who made the antibody, sequenced the antibody genes, and cloned them to make mature antibodies. The antibody was then tested in multiple cancer cell lines, including lung, gastric and breast cancers in lab dishes and in tumors in living mice. Researchers observed that the antibodies inhibited tumor growth without obvious side effects. The antibody, researchers believe, only recognizes the structurally different part of CFH protein that they believe is only found in tumor cells. It then impacts tumor growth by disabling the protective CPH layer and destroying cancer cells.

“[In] this last study— what I consider the most important and interesting— we did something nobody has done before,”senior author Dr. Edward F. Patz, Jr. the James and Alice Chen Professor of Radiology and professor in the department of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke, told Fox News. “We took cells to make the antibody and figured out the secrets of the antibodies they’re making.”

Patz and colleagues — including principals from the Duke Human Vaccine Institute who have been advancing the development of antibodies for an HIV vaccine — started with the observation that some lung cancer patients have…